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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Facing the Persecution

It's no secret that it's open season on Christians that dare to publicly affirm their beliefs in Christian moral values... particularly when it comes to moral values concerning sexuality. Dare to affirm your beliefs in public and you run the risk of being fired (or "encouraged" to resign), sued or prosecuted depending on the circumstances of your behavior. Never mind the fact that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect Americans from that threat. Our beliefs are classified as intolerance and therefore those who disagree don't have to tolerate us. Which brings us to the question of what we are to do about it.

No, this isn't going to be a post about preparing bunkers and stocking up on firearms. I figure that if society collapses, I'm likely one of the weak who get eliminated quickly by the mobs. How could I advise you on this?

Nor is this going to be a post about the need to overthrow the government. Yes, our government is terribly unjust and corrupt at this time, favoring those they like and harassing those who disagree with them. But so long as we have some freedoms left, let us use them to reach out to those people of good will. Remember, St. Justin Martyr didn't call for the overthrow of the Roman Empire. He wrote to the Emperor (Antonius Pius) appealing to his reputation for justice. It took almost 300 years before Christians could practice their faith without legal harassment or persecution... and Christians still spread the faith without seeking to overthrow the government.

What this is about is encouraging every Christian to begin preparing for the fact that we may be challenged to deny aspects of our faith and do evil to protect our lives or our freedom. We may not have time to hide or to evade a question forcing us to choose between our freedom and our faith.

Because we believe God is almighty and creator of everything visible and invisible, we cannot accept the State as having the right to change the natural law on what is moral. We believe God is all powerful and all good. What He decrees is not arbitrary. It then follows He decrees what is good because it reflects His own goodness.

Now, for the Catholic, we believe that because Jesus is God and that He gave the Church His authority to bind and to loose and to teach in His name (see Matt 16:18-19, Matt 18:18 and Matt 28:20). Because we believe this, we cannot accept any encroachment from the State onto the authority of what the Church can or cannot say.

Thus, we need to prepare ourselves by remembering what we believe. Those who hate us and try to both force our beliefs out of public life and force us to contradict our beliefs when we are in public may have power, but we must remain faithful to our Savior and witness to the truth about Him as God's way of reaching out to those who hate us.